SIOUX CITY, Iowa — Record Big Sioux River flooding prompted residents in three states to hurriedly prepare for the rising water Thursday, with people lining up for sand bags and moving items — including museum artifacts — to higher ground.

The fast-moving Big Sioux has been swollen by days of thunderstorms and is expected to crest Friday more than a foot above the previous record level set in 1969, threatening homes and businesses in Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota.

In North Sioux City, S.D., dozens of National Guard soldiers rushed to fill sandbags for residents of the McCook Lake neighborhood, where up to 400 homes were in danger.

Residents including Ashley Caskey waited for hours in a line of pickup trucks that inched toward the sandbag filling stations.

“We are just happy to get sandbags at this point,” Caskey said.

This the worst flooding the region has seen since 2011, when the Missouri River remained high for months, causing tributaries to back up and testing the levee system. The fact that the levee held for long at that time showed it’s effective, said Jade Dundas, assistant city manager for public works for Sioux City, Iowa.

Tornado strikes S.D. town, razing homes • WESSINGTON SPRINGS, s.d. — A timely warning allowed an entire South Dakota city to find shelter from a tornado that razed dozens of homes and businesses but injured only one or two people in the area, officials said Thursday.

Dedrich Koch, a Jerauld County prosecutor, said everyone was accounted for after the twister hit Wessington Springs just before 8 p.m. Wednesday.

Charles Bergeleen, who has lived in Wessington Springs since 1981, said the twister moved over hills and through the town, missing his house by 50 feet.

“There’s debris all over that (south) end of town; there’s a lot of insulation, wood, siding,” Bergeleen said. “I found a license plate from Texas in my yard. I guess it’s from someone who was visiting the area.”

Ten businesses were damaged, five of them extensively, and at least 25 of 43 houses that were damaged are uninhabitable, Bergeleen said Thursday. The city has a population of about 850 residents. The Associated Press

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